The goal of product reviews is to align on the quality of work and get aligned feedback from product leadership. You’ll have the opportunity to present your work throughout every stage of your project to gain valuable feedback. You can sign up for a product review slot here.
General Info
How do product reviews work?
There are 3 Types of product reviews:
- Problem Alignment: Where the cross-functional team explains the problem they are trying to solve.
- Should align on the current state, why the problem is important, and why they are proposing to work on this project. Try to "elicit a meaningful reaction" — what are the core assumptions that underlie the problem?
- Many projects will have this review
- Solution Alignment: Where the cross-functional team team shares a proposed solution or set of options (and the option space considered to get there).
- Almost all projects will have this review.
- Launch Readiness: Where the cross-functional team outlines dependencies for launch.
- Only Large projects will have this review.
Length of product reviews:
- Product review slots can be 15, 30, 45, or 60 min in length
- Leave time for feedback from the group as well as time to summarize feedback and next steps to make sure everyone's on the same page
Scheduling product reviews:
- Product reviews are available to be scheduled weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays
- Sign up at the Product Review Signups page and contact @Paulina Minite if there are any changes or issues
- We can always schedule more time if there are more needs for a given week
Who should attend product reviews?
Everyone that’s working on the problem you're discussing in review. That means:
- The project team: PM, engineering lead, design lead, DS lead, POM, etc.
- Relevant members from other teams that will be useful to advance the discussion (i.e., PM from shared surface or component)
Attendees will vary depending on your project's needs, but please default to inviting everyone. The more (context) the merrier.
What should I bring to product review?
That depends on what phase your project is at. The best reviews will think through the time and create structure around the discussion (vs poking around a large figma file, for example)
- Problem alignment:
- Bring context and research. Low fidelity sketches, wireframes, or mockups.
- Solution alignment:
- Bring high fidelity designs or functional prototypes
- Launch readiness:
- Bring the final working version you plan to ship to your audience
How to prepare for a product review
BEFORE THE REVIEW
- Review the project with your lead and project team beforehand. Make sure everyone's happy with what you're presenting.
- Teams should send out all materials that will be covered by EOD the day before the review in the #product-review slack channel.
- All participants should have read the materials before the beginning of the Review time
- Designate a note taker. Every Product review should have a person on the team designated for taking raw notes.
DURING THE REVIEW
- Explain the context of the project: what is the problem we’re trying to solve?
- What kind of feedback are you looking for?
- What questions do you need to answer to move forward?
- Reviews any action items (AIs) and specific timelines for when those will be followed up on
AT THE END
- Recap the next steps you’re going to take.
- If someone asked you a question that you didn’t have the answer to, make sure to follow up after over Slack or email once you have the answers.
- Teams should leave product reviews with a clear sense on if there are any specific AIs
- Follow ups can happen async in the PR slack thread or sync (sign up for another PR slot), depending on the scope of the follow up.
- A synthesized summary of the notes + AIs should be posted to the #product-reviews slack channel by EOD the day of the product review
- Use that slack thread as a clearinghouse for posting follow ups, discussions, etc related to the review